“Feminist. A person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes.”

I have been more involved in trying to fully understand what it means to be a feminist of late and if I believe that I am a feminist. Social media has been the main tool I have used to find out the information and ideals that I need to understand so I can truly use the word ‘feminism’ to its fullest capacity.

All I know, at the moment, is that I am passionate about the movement of gender equality and what it means to truly be a person and not be limited by what my gender defines me as: “male”. To me that is not enough.

The online campaigns that have been created by consequence of battle for gender equality have been bold and brave and executed iconically.

He for she was brought to the publics attention via UN goodwill ambassador Emma Watson, Over 130,905 men from all over the globe have already committed and taken the pledge to gender equality using the website. I have also taken this pledge.

“If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted, women won’t feel compelled to be submissive.

If men don’t have to control, women won’t have to be controlled.

Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive.

Both men and women should feel free to be strong.

It is time that we all perceived gender on a spectrum instead of 2 sets of opposing ideals.” – Emma Watson

@NoToFeminism is a twitter parody account that uses anti-feminist words, phrases and quotes, altering them to expose and undermine anti-feminist thinking. Even though this can be seen as dangerous territory they seem to have a normal response to such a controversial output.

Everyday Feminism is a purely online presence on twitter and facebook for educating, teaching and creating opportunities for everyone to be involved in feminism and helping it become a positive thing and being constant source of support for women online.

Sam Pepper is the name that feminist’s and social media advocates have been throwing into the burning hole to perish after a series of videos where the word “Prank” has been used to humourise sexual harassment and sexual assault with unsuspecting young women.

It took less than 48 hours to remove the video and suspend his account and on top of that an open letter to Sam Pepper gathered a gut wrenching number of signatures – created by Laci Green – to stop producing these kind of harmful videos, to take his platform on social media seriously and for him to recognise the impact he has on young impressionable viewers.=

I was part of the group who fought against Sam Pepper to remove his videos that went against YouTube’s terms and agreements. After the event had died down I was amazed at how much we had accomplished as a community of introverted feminists and self proclaimed feminist of the internet. We saw something that was wrong and instead of brushing it under the rug we acted upon it as a group and took it down with silent force.

This is the power of not just modern feminism but a strong community who have the same beliefs as the first wave of the movement in the early nineteenth and twentieth century.

People have said that the word feminism died with the birth of social media. To me the word did not die but has gained a lot more weight and support to its cause.

Women and men who are seen as passionate and forward about something, involving equal rights and gender equality, are labeled outspoken, fanatic and militant, something to be feared or “Anti peace”. It’s in fact the exact opposite; you need to be outspoken to create a wave of change. To think of something as controversial and then to not talk about it is wrong.

Social media is the crux of the matter and also the downfall of that change. With the ability and strength of social media to pull together thousands of feminist from all across the world with a single tweet or video it has become crucial in the fight for feminism and equal rights to be taken 100% seriously. But with the unknown reasoning behind the backlash of citizens who don’t want equal rights or are too lazy for change, social media is gonna be the catalyst for both sides.

Hopefully, one day I will be brave enough to call myself a feminist to others but right now I am happy and proud to be a social media advocate of feminism.